Public health officials announced another 178 new COVID-19-related deaths on Thursday, bringing the statewide total to 2,360.
Officials confirmed another 3,079 positive tests as well — the highest number in a single day — for a total of 46,023 cases of coronavirus statewide.
But that increase coincides with the largest single report of new testing, with 14,614 new tests administered. Between state and commercial efforts, there are now 195,076 coronavirus tests that have been conducted since the start of the outbreak.
Suffolk County continues to have the highest rate of infection with 1,198 being reported per 100,000 residents, followed by Norfolk, Middlesex, Plymouth and Essex with between 465 and 779 cases per 100,000.
The highest death rate, however, is in Hampden County, where 60 residents are dying from the virus for every 100,000 residents. Norfolk County is seeing the second-highest death rate, with 47 residents dying for every 100,000.
Racial and ethnic data is still largely incomplete, according to Thursday’s stats. Roughly 53% percent of deaths still haven’t been identified by ethnicity. About 38% of those who’ve died are non-Hispanic white.
The new figures come as health care leaders spoke about the decline in emergency department visits for non-coronavirus health problems, prompting a number of the state’s teaching hospitals to issue a public service announcement assuring the public of the system’s ability to handle the demand for other medical issues.
Gregg Meyer, chief clinical officer at Partners HealthCare, said on Thursday there has been “a growing number of empty beds” in emergency departments because people are afraid of going to the hospital for a number of health problems and being exposed to the virus.
Baystate, for example, used to see 120 children daily in the emergency room of Baystate Children’s Hospital, said Nancy Shendell-Falik, president of Baystate Medical Center. Now it sees sees 25 to 30 patients per day. Shendell-Falik also said there has been in 80 percent decline in patients with stroke symptoms during the outbreak.
Meyer warned that people neglecting to seek medical care, or taking it upon themselves to try to resolve their own health problems, could amount to a “second toll” of the pandemic.
“For those of you who might wary of visiting a hospital during these anxious times, let me assure you, Massachusetts hospitals are open for business,” Meyer said on Thursday. “We have the beds, we have the physicians, we have the nurses, we have the specialists, we have the resources to treat you.”
Meyer added that hospitals have put in place policies and procedures to keep the emergency departments and inpatient facilities safe for the public.
The state began releasing more comprehensive data on the outbreak earlier this week in an effort to increase transparency. The new data shows, among other things, the number of cases per hospital; rates of infection, hospitalization and death by county and age group; and nursing home information.
But the data has so far proven to be error-prone. Due a formatting error, the Department of Public Health reported in its update on Wednesday that Middlefield had 89 new infections when there were in fact none.
On top of that, DPH said that Winthrop, a town of 18,535 in Suffolk County, had 110 coronavirus patients as of Wednesday, and reported that the community had 12,877.64 cases per 100,000 residents instead of 583.64.
The move to release more data is a shift from the Baker administration’s approach to reporting earlier in the health crisis. Health officials initially limited data to cases and deaths by county. Gov. Charlie Baker has since tweaked what officials are willing to disclose, opting to share town-level data after facing pushback from lawmakers, local officials and residents.
Here are the cases listed by county:
Barnstable County: 708
Berkshire County: 418
Bristol County: 2,181
Dukes County: 14
Essex County: 6,219
Franklin County: 203
Hampden County: 2,836
Hampshire County: 367
Middlesex County: 10,724
Nantucket County: 9
Norfolk County: 4,541
Plymouth County: 3,529
Suffolk County: 9,739
Worcester County: 3,798
Unknown location: 737
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